The present invention reelates to a nonwoven fabric coated with a cleaning composition and articles such as cloths, gloves and mitts made from this fabric. Prior to the present invention, coated fabrics for cleaning have been described in which the coating is applied in a discontinuous fashion to allow for absorbtion of soil and water into the glove or mitt.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,001 to Floyd describes a dry and shine polishing cloth composed of a meltblown nonwoven web coated in a discontinuous fashion with polishing chemicals. This product is suitable for drying and polishing lightly soiled surfaces but would not be suitable for cleaning heavily soiled Or gritty surfaces since all of the water and soil being cleaned off of the surface must be absorbed into the glove. Hence, the dry and shine polish cloth would quickly lose its utility due to soil build up.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,250 to Brown describes needle punching a two bodied fabric to form a high pile fabric in which the structure of the fabric is carefully controlled to allow a delayed release of the detergent from the inside of the mitt to the outside. Because the emphasis is on delayed release, the detergent is applied on the interior surface as well. The result is that the detergent is inside the mitt next to the user's hand and this is likely to cause skin irritation to the user's hand, especially with prolonged use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,749 to Pike et al. describes spun bonded and thermally bonded fabrics but makes no mention of needle-punched fabrics. Furthermore, the surface-active ingredients are applied to the fabric in small quantities since many of the topically applicable surface active agents are liquids and it is not desirable that they should exude out of the fabric prematurely. This patent also calls for non-woven webs having “autogenous inter-fiber bonds at the crossover contact points of its fibers throughout the web” because fabrics with inter-fiber bonds exhibit the “high resilience, strength and abrasion resistance” necessary for spreading surface active ingredients and buffing or polishing surfaces.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,373,601 to Miller deals with a vehicle washing mitt design that incorporates artificial lamb wool and an abrasive material.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,593 to Bayless describes a mitt composed of rubberized canvas and synthetic foam. Bayless's mitt contains a soap reservoir and a hose attachment. The mitt also contains a control device, which controls the use of soap and water. It is evident to even the casual observer that these are not intended to be single use (disposable) products like the fabric or mitt of the present invention. Rather they are objects of complex design and construction.
A number of water and solvent based formulas similar to our formula are described in the trade literature (e.g., Witco formula 636), but in all cases these formulas are designed to be used as liquids. These formulas employ liquid alkanolamides which impart a wet and greasy hand to any fabric to which they are applied.